n Cousin Annie was gone, Sukey found the Flats a dreary place. She
wished there were some pagodas, such as they have in India, or that there
were some cannibals living near her. She thought if she were rich, she
would buy an omnibus, with four "blaze-faced" sorrel horses, to drive for
her own amusement. She got tired of the pumpkins and cabbages, and longed
for grizzly bears and red Indians. She hated to wash dishes and feed the
chickens, but thought she would like to be a slave on a coffee plantation
in Ceylon.

"Oh, dear!" she sighed, "I wish I was out of the Hoop-Pole Country. There
is nothing beautiful or curious in these flats. I am tired of great
yellow sunflowers and hollyhocks and pumpkin blossoms. I wish I could see
something curious or beautiful."

Now, isn't it strange that any little girl should talk so, with plenty of
birds and trees and sunshine? But so it is with most of us. We generally
refuse to enjoy what is in our reach, and long for something that we
cannot get. Just as Chicken Little, here, always wants milk when there is
none, and always asks for tea when you offer her milk.

"Well, 'cause I'm firsty, that's the reason," said the Chicken.

Now, when Sukey said this, she was up in the loft, or second story, if
you could call it story, of her father's house. She sat on a bench,
looking out of the gable window at the old stick chimney, made by
building a square _cob-house_ arrangement of sticks of wood, tapering
toward the top, and plastering it with clay. The top of the chimney was
surrounded by a barrel with both ends open, through which the smoke
climbed lazily up into the air. Near by stood an oak-tree, in which a
jay-bird was screaming and dancing in a jerky way. Sukey then looked
away into the blue sky, and the clouds seemed to become pagodas, and
palm-trees, and golden ships floating drowsily away. All at once she
heard somebody say, in a queer, birdlike voice--

"Pray, look this way, little Sukey Gray. May I make bold to say you are
looking grum to-day? You neither laugh nor play; now what's the reason,
pray?"

Sukey started up to see where this funny jingle came from. There, in the
oak-tree, where the jay-bird had stood a few minutes before, was a
queer-looking little chap, in blue coat and pants, with a top-knot cap
and a rather sharp nose. He looked a little like a jay-bird, but had a
most comical face and blinky eyes, and brought his words out in short
jerks, making them rhyme in an